Conservation Of Cultural Materials Research Articles

Embracing Humanness in Cultural Materials Conservation: A Roundtable Discussion with Conservation Professionals on Ethics, Values and the Future

This paper develops an understanding of the complex interplay of perspectives implicit in the multifaceted practice of Cultural Materials Conservation, as it pertains to individuals, larger organisational structures, and contemporary social contexts. The research takes the form of a six-week online qualitative group interview, which captures a range of opinions and attitudes from a cross-sectional group of conservation practitioners. The data is presented as a complete de-anonymised interview transcript, available as a supplementary material, which describes the experiences and perspectives of individual practitioners, their day-to-day challenges, and the decision-making processes conservators face in their practice. A central argument in this paper is the value of the concepts of humanness and reflexivity in twenty-first-century conservation thinking. Reflecting on the role of individual practitioners as custodians of cultural heritage, with the view on what it means to be a conservator in practice today, is a valuable contribution that can shed light on the conservation decision-making and evolving practice that is focused on sensitivity and fluid responsiveness to cultural changes, personal values, and diverse relationships involved in the conservation of cultural heritage.

Surveys of Plastics in Post-1950 Non-published Book Collections

Abstract Research over the past three decades has demonstrated that certain plastics in cultural materials are inherently unstable, displaying short lifespans and accelerating the degradation of neighbouring collection materials. Knowledge of the conservation of plastics is increasingly common in museum settings. However, less information is available on conserving plastics found in paper-based collections, and even less guidance on the materials and deterioration of plastic components found in book and document bindings. As plastics have been present in popular bookbinding materials since the mid-twentieth century, collection care professions require knowledge and methods for preserving these materials entering book collections. The aim of this paper is to determine strategies for the care of post-1950s books containing plastic. Collection surveys were conducted to determine the materials, structures, and degradation patterns of non-published books found in archive and archive-like settings at the South Australian Museum, the Art Gallery of New South Wales, and the Grimwade Centre for Cultural Materials Conservation at the University of Melbourne. A methodology combining condition reporting and infrared spectroscopy identified six plastic polymers in 35 binding styles that are summarised as 10 binding types. Recommendations are made for the use of preventive storage strategies responding to four categories of damage.

Targeting specialist skills through Work-Integrated Learning: a case study in frames conservation at the Art Gallery of New South Wales

The research presented here investigates the use of Work-Integrated Learning approaches to target areas of specialist skills within the cultural materials conservation sector. A case study of a 12-month pre-graduate position in frames conservation at the Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW) is used to centre the study. The motivations, structure and outcomes of the position are analysed using semi-structured interviews by the post-holder with key members of the AGNSW staff. Using a process of self-reflection consideration is given to understanding what skills have been learnt, including the development of cognitive skills such as muscle memory and pattern recognition, and how this learning is championed by close mentorship that led to the stronger development of professional competencies. The results support a positive argument for Work-Integrated Learning as a mutually beneficial, forward-looking and industry-relevant training model to address areas of specialist conservation skills gaps and shortages in the cultural materials conservation sector.

Change Comes from Within: Shared Efforts in Developing Conservation in Indonesia

ABSTRACT The field of cultural materials conservation in Indonesia faces various challenges pertinent to developing countries. As some of Indonesia’s emerging conservators, the authors identified that the first best step towards responding to these issues is through two-way learning and collaboration. Through the generous support of the Australia Awards in Indonesia’s Alumni Grant Scheme, the Bali Art and Heritage Conservation Internship Programme (BAHCIP) was conceived in 2020 and carried out in 2021 to act as a collaborative pilot project involving both local practitioners and international experts. At its core, BAHCIP is designed to introduce the conservation profession to cultural heritage workers and volunteers, facilitate knowledge exchange between practitioners, initiate critical and thought-provoking discussions, and most importantly, encourage the interns to pursue formal conservation studies. The main participants in this small-scale programme were recent graduates and emerging conservators as mentors, two local museums in Bali as hosts, and five interns of varying backgrounds. Given Covid-19 restrictions, the programme was delivered through a hybrid setting which involved an online lecture series and a three-week in-person internship. This paper presents an overview of the programme, discusses the unique conservation landscape in Indonesia and reports on how the pilot project might offer an effective and impactful pathway to the development of conservation in the country. The result, in general, indicates that BAHCIP has improved the interns’ understanding and awareness of the importance of conservation, enriched their conservation experience, and encouraged them to pursue conservation studies.

Climate Change, Climate Action and Cultural Heritage Collections in Australia

ABSTRACT The Australian Institute for the Conservation of Cultural Material has published a range of resources that promote environmentally aware collection care and management practices including climate-specific Environmental Guidelines, the Sustainable Collections wiki and the Climate Adaptation resource. The Climate Adaptation resource provides access to 180 maps illustrating potential future climate scenarios for Australia in 2030 and 2090, using the two Representative Concentration Pathways RCP4.5 and RCP8.5. These maps were produced as part of research undertaken in 2019–2020 by Pagliarino and Meredith and supplement those published in volume 41 (issue 1) of the AICCM Bulletin. The release of updated climate change projections in the Sixth Assessment Report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis – precipitated a review of the Climate Adaptation resource to confirm the continued veracity of the maps. This paper provides the results of that assessment, which confirmed the resource’s ongoing accuracy and currency. In addition, the paper includes discussion of the new IPCC future climate scenarios of Shared Socioeconomic Pathways, which supersede RCP, and a summary of the state of the climate in Australia with warming, humidity, fire, weather and sea level rise investigated in more detail.

Clashes in conservation: First Nations sites, communities and culture in Australian cultural heritage management

In the context of Australian cultural heritage management, conservation can contribute to the decolonisation of the sector by prioritising truth telling, repatriation and reconciliation when working with First Nations cultural heritage. Reflecting on a recent instance in which the heritage site Juukan Gorge was destroyed, we emphasise that the destruction of cultural heritage can create opportunities for change. Recognising the impact of dissociation as an agent of deterioration, we highlight community-led initiatives conserving First Nations cultural heritage within a variety of institutions and environments. The case studies examined reveal the value of a holistic approach to the conservation of cultural materials and how conservation can be a conduit for reconciling the relationships between Western and First Nations cultural heritage values and practices.

From the classroom to the field: developing cross-cultural skills in conservation

This article describes the chronological experience of an Indonesian conservator, a graduate of the University of Melbourne’s Master of Cultural Materials Conservation. It reviews the lessons learnt and the relevancy of classroom education in preparing him as a leader on two community engagement projects, as a supervisor on a disaster recovery project and as a cultural heritage conservator in the Bali Cultural Heritage Preservation Office. Given this experience the article focusses on the required ethics for Indonesian conservators working in the field, in particular when dealing with the conservation of living heritage and its community, as well as the cross-cultural work experience needed for the work. Moreover, it highlights an interesting case of a traditional (green) conservation practice that has been extensively promoted by the major conservation institution in Indonesia, Balai Konservasi Borobudur (Borobudur Conservation Office).

From Limbo to Mashup and the Spell of the Fake: Relating contemporary photographic practice and the photographic archive through a framework of Material Engagement Theory

In this paper, Cognitive Archaeology’s Material Engagement Theory is engaged as a means to consider some of the current material interests and the social dimension of contemporary photographic practice in relation to photographic archives. First the social fabric at the foundation of the John Marshall Photographic Collection and the research methods and working practices of its founder are described. Then, three contemporary photo-mediated artworks, whose inception lies with archival material from the John Marshall Photographic Collection held at The British School at Rome, are discussed through a framework of MET’s three working hypotheses. These are the hypothesis of the extended mind, the hypothesis of enactive signification and the hypothesis of material agency. By drawing together the current material and social interests of contemporary photographic practice with MET, in specific relation to archival photographic material, this paper aims to shed new light on some of the diverse ways in which contemporary photographic practitioners are engaging with photographic archives. Presented here is a preliminary introduction of contemporary photographic practice to the practical applications of MET’s three working hypotheses, so that those in the field of cultural materials conservation may be able to consider its application in their own practice-based activity and discourse.

For mutual benefit: cultural materials conservation and local government—a case study

There are two challenges currently faced by communities in Australia in the protection and preservation of their cultural, historical and scientific heritage. An exploration of these serves as the basis for this paper. The first is the need to provide sustainable economic support for the preservation of built and movable cultural heritage. The second is the need to develop infrastructure that can support preservation activities. This paper examines how Bathurst Regional Council is addressing these significant issues. It examines the impetus for Council to develop a broader vision around its built and movable heritage and the strategic framework that is scaffolding current initiatives. This case study of Bathurst Regional Council’s response to the need to preserve, invest and best use its cultural heritage assets demonstrates why conservation partnerships are critical both for community development and for the development of the conservation profession.

Professor Colin Pearson: ‘one of the most versatile and capable conservators of his generation’

Professor Colin Pearson played a transformative role in cultural materials conservation in Australia. As a founding member of the AICCM, the first Editor of its peer-reviewed journal, and the Head and Professor of the first tertiary conservation education program in Australia, Colin Pearson influenced the lives and careers of many conservators across Australia and further afield. This paper considers his extraordinary contributions, with a particular focus on conservation education, highlighting his many achievements and his legacy to the discipline and to the profession.

Environmental Guidelines—An Australian Perspective

In 2018, the Australian Institute for the Conservation of Cultural Material (AICCM) embarked on the ambitious Environmental Guidelines Project. As the project gets underway, the author looks back at the formative research undertaken by Emeritus Professor Colin Pearson from 1990 through to the early 2000s. His approach to the management of the collection environment was both culturally and environmentally aware and led to the development of climate-specific environmental guidelines and collection care strategies. In this paper, the author recounts personal reflections on Professor Pearson’s enlightened and progressive teaching and looks at the ongoing global debate on sustainable cultural heritage practices within the Australian context.

Pioneering collections conservation in the Asia-Pacific 1978–1998 A job well done

Colin Pearson was an internationalist. From his debuts as a metals scientist into a long and fruitful career in the field of conservation of cultural materials, he used his expertise internationally and made a significant contribution to the establishment of materials conservation in Southeast Asia and the Pacific. His role in the creation of the UNESCO Regional Conservation Centre in Canberra, to assist with the development of conservation in Southeast Asia and in the Pacific, and the assessment visits that he carried in partnership with UNESCO and ICCROM, were essential. Respecting and fostering local agency, long before this became part of the official heritage discourse, Colin and his institutional partners believed in building and nurturing relationships. This resulted in an international professional network, built through publications and numerous workshops delivered across Asia and the Pacific, with many of the students and colleagues becoming key actors in the regional conservation developments programs. It led to the establishment of regional centres that are today able to collaborate in further conservation training and projects. This article recounts Colin’s contribution to the first two decades of the Asian Pacific program and reflects on his vision for sustainable conservation centres throughout the region.

Reporting on a survey of peer-reviewed publishing in cultural materials conservation: perceptions, preferences, and decision-making

Specialist publications are an important part of professional and disciplinary development. They serve to communicate research; enable the development of a shared, contestable, and expanding knowledge base; support the educational programmes that advance the profession; grow practice; and inform the evolution of the discipline. In conservation, professional and peer-reviewed journals and other forms of publications support cultural, organisational, and scientific development; facilitate new and improved forms of conservation professional practice; enable the growth of a distinctive research-led discipline; and help conservation to more effectively compete with other disciplines for influence and funding. This paper reports on the findings of a study that investigated conservators’ opinions and experiences of peer-reviewed publishing. This study examined the value conservators place on the dissemination of their research; the obstacles to, and incentives in publishing; the views held by conservators of the benefits of publication to themselves and the field; and the impact of the field's inherent interdisciplinarity on the pattern of conservation publishing. Eighty-six conservators (conservators and conservation scientists) and ten journal editors completed an online questionnaire focusing on the communication of knowledge within the field of cultural materials conservation. Findings suggest that while the peer review process is valued, a significant number who responded indicated a preference for forms of communication other than in peer review journals or publishing in general.

The development of conservation practices in China from the 1980s to the present

This article reviews cultural materials conservation in China from its foundations in the early 1950s when traditional craftsmanship and workshop techniques were practised, through its growth in the 1980s to the present day as a prestigious profession at the leading edge of multidisciplinary science. Its historical evolution is delineated into four phases: traditional, post-revolution, post-1980 and contemporary cultural materials conservation. The current situation of the conservation profession in China is discussed in terms of regulation, organisation, education, cooperation, current challenges and future opportunities.

Connecting objects, communities and cultural knowledge

Cultural objects carry forward the identity of the past into the future. The process of preservation therefore has strong impact on the transmission of cultural knowledge and the definition of identity. The works of Elman Service, Nicholas Thomas and Marica Pointon have examined concepts of geography, economics and politics to argue how, as custodians of cultural artefacts, cultural institutions can reframe the idea of authority knowledge. Informed by this work, and the broader critique of cultural positions by Arjun Appadurai and others, institutions have sought to enhance knowledge and presentations by engagement with collection-specific expert knowledge holders within communities, and, in so doing, to democratise the representation of cultural material. Defined initially by Mary Louise Pratt and later James Clifford, contact zones have been utilised within museums to create shared spaces for dialogue and exchange. Focusing on two case studies, the Returned and Services League LifeCare War Museum in Narrabeen and the Middle Eastern Manuscript Collection at the University of Melbourne, this paper examines how academic specialist knowledge in cultural materials conservation can be aligned with the needs of community-focused museums to enhance knowledge and understanding of the collection, and its conservation needs, through specialist expertise held by communities. It does so by examining how different zones—the initial landing zone, the early exploration zone, the collaboration zone and the transfer of knowledge zone—provide opportunities for potent interactions and complex creative exchanges.

A National Conservation Policy for a New Millennium—Building Opportunity, Extending Capacity and Securing Integration in Cultural Materials Conservation

In Launceston, in October 1995, the Federal Government launched Australia's National Conservation Policy for the Conservation of Movable Cultural Heritage. This policy, developed for the Cultural Ministers Council (Australia), was one of the very few national materials conservation policies in the world. The associated strategy led to the development of important frameworks and tools for significance assessment, conservation planning, training, disaster preparedness and environmental guidelines, and in identification of skills gaps and research needs. The political, economic and technological environment in which conservators operate has changed considerably since 1995, and, with the majority of conservators engaged by public institutions, many constituencies in Australia remain relatively untouched by the work of the profession. As a result there exist many new opportunities for conservators to engage with individuals and communities, but a national focus is required to most effectively garner resources, avoid duplication and take advantage of new technologies. This paper examines the case for a new iteration of a national policy for the conservation of Australia's cultural heritage material, and outlines the work needed to achieve this.

Normal and Extraordinary Conservation Knowledge: Towards a Post-normal Theory of Cultural Materials Conservation

The two fundamental words and concepts that have come to delineate the field of cultural materials conservation—conservation and restoration—represent an essential tension in both theory and practice. Commencing with an historical overview of the use of these two terms, their current meanings as prescribed in the ICOM-CC Definition of the Profession, are then examined drawing on Thomas Kuhn's concepts of ‘paradigm shifts’, ‘normal science’ and ‘extraordinary science’. The implications, opportunities and potential for conservation are then considered through the concept of post-normal science, to propose a democratised, community-centred theory of conservation.

Trepang: China and the story of Macassan- Aboriginal Trade – Examining historical accounts as research tools for cultural materials conservation

The incorporation of the formal study of artists’ materials and techniques into conservation practice has formed the basis of a range of projects, programs and publications at least since the beginning of the twentieth century, when the Director of the Fogg Art Museum, Edward Forbes began to collect artists’ pigments for investigation and analysis. Of increasing interest to conservators is the way that trade and innovation impact on artistic production, including dates at which materials became available, centres of use, and the patterns of take up by artists. For conservators working in the Asia-Pacific region questions about Western artists’ materials are interesting and useful in informing decision-making. There is the danger, however, of embedding a discourse that privileges trade from the West as the most significant indicator of innovation in artistic practice.In Australia, across the continent and across the millennium trade goods from northern Australia were exchanged for material from the south. This trade supported the continued development of innovation in philosophy and practice in the performing and visual arts in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. By the seventeenth century, cultural innovation was supported by the important Asian north-south international trade in cultural material and commodities to China, through the Indonesian archipelago to the northern coastline of Australia. In return highly valued trepang (sea cucumber) and other items were traded from Australia through north Indonesia to China. In the late nineteenth century, Western artists’ materials from Europe were introduced into Australian Aboriginal art practice, and in the twentieth century an explosion of trade activity saw art materials produced in Europe and China purchased for use by Aboriginal artist and Aboriginal art traded across Europe, the Americas and Asia. This paper examines how the important trade routes, developed prior to European settlement, inform contemporary art making in Aboriginal communities today.

Veterans and students: enhancing community engagement at the Returned Services League LifeCare War Museum, Narrabeen

AbstractThe on-going partnership between the Australian War Memorial, the managers and residents of a Returned Services League retirement village, and the Centre for Cultural Materials Conservation, University of Melbourne, constitutes an excellent case study of conservation-led student, volunteer and community empowerment. This community-engagement project is focused on gradually developing the museological skills of the volunteers running the retirement village's War Museum, enlisting conservation students to help them establish good museum practices. The students and volunteers acquired new collection care capabilities. The students' appreciation of their positive contribution to stakeholder engagement, community museums and commemorative displays deepened as residents demonstrated the links between their wartime experiences and the collection. With increasing professional activity the museum's public profile expanded, inducing more residents to donate time, objects and stories. The project's beneficia...

Waringarri Aboriginal Arts: Rethinking practices in conservation documentation through assessing the needs of a community arts centre

The conservation profession has well established methods and practices for addressing preservation needs. The practicality of these, however, can be called into question when they are applied outside an institutional environment, particularly in a different cultural context. This paper explores the conservation needs of an Aboriginal community art centre. Over several years a partnership between the Centre for Cultural Materials Conservation at The University of Melbourne and Waringarri Aboriginal Arts, Kununurra, Western Australia, has seen the development of a method for the assessment and care of Waringarri’s permanent community collections. The deterioration factors impacting the preservation of cultural material in the East Kimberley region were considered. Limited documentation arising from a lack of infrastructure, resources and funding was found to be one of the key conservation issues. A strategy is recommended that seeks a national approach to conservation documentation of Indigenous art. This paper suggests that members of the Australian Institute for the Conservation of Cultural Material (AICCM) form a Special Interest Group, much like the Archives Society of Australia’s Indigenous Issues Special Interest Group, to collaborate with representatives from art centres and to work towards a framework for training, resources and funding to support the preservation of Aboriginal cultural material.